Electronic device and method for the electronic device

ABSTRACT

Provided are an electronic device and a method for an electronic device. The electronic device comprises a processing circuit, configured to: determine sub-system in specific region, and based on relative interference between the sub-systems and quality of service requirements for the sub-systems, clustering the sub-systems.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No.17/226,119, filed Apr. 9, 2021, which is a continuation of U.S.application Ser. No. 16/310,833, filed Dec. 18, 2018 (now U.S. Pat. No.11,039,450), which is a National Stage Application based onPCT/CN2017/092158, filed on Jul. 7, 2017, and claims priority to ChinesePatent Application No. 201610616478.6, titled “ELECTRONIC DEVICE ANDMETHOD FOR THE ELECTRONIC DEVICE”, filed on Jul. 29, 2016 with ChinaNational Intellectual Property Administration, the entire contents ofeach are incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

Embodiments of the present disclosure generally relate to the field ofwireless communications, in particular to spectrum resource managementin a wireless communication system using the cognitive radio technology,and more particular to an electronic apparatus and a method for theelectronic apparatus.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

With the development of wireless communication technology, demands of auser for high quality, a high speed, a new service is higher and higher.A wireless communication operator and a device manufacturer shouldcontinuously improve a system to meet the demands of the user. In thiscase, a large amount of spectrum resources are required to support thenew service arising continuously, and to meet requirements of high-speedcommunications, and the spectrum resources may be quantized with aparameter such as time, frequency, band width, allowable maximumemitting power.

Currently, limited spectrum resources have been allocated to fixedoperators and services, new available spectrum is very rare orexpensive. Yet, a large number of actual measurement results indicatethat generally the utilization rate of the allocated licensed spectrumis not high. In this case, a concept of dynamic spectrum usage isproposed, that is, spectrum resources which have been allocated tocertain services but are not utilized sufficiently are utilizeddynamically.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In the following, an overview of the present invention is given simplyto provide basic understanding to some aspects of the present invention.It should be understood that this overview is not an exhaustive overviewof the present invention. It is not intended to determine a criticalpart or an important part of the present invention, nor to limit thescope of the present invention. An object of the overview is only togive some concepts in a simplified manner, which serves as a preface ofa more detailed description described later.

According to an aspect of the present disclosure, an electronicapparatus is provided, which includes processing circuitry configuredto: determine secondary systems in a particular area; and cluster, basedon relative interferences among the secondary systems and quality ofservice requirements of the secondary systems, the secondary systems.

According to another aspect of the present disclosure, a method for anelectronic apparatus is provided, including: determining secondarysystems in the particular area; and clustering, based on relativeinterferences among the secondary systems and quality of servicerequirements of the secondary systems, the secondary systems.

According to other aspects of the present disclosure, there are furtherprovided computer program codes and computer program products formethods for the electronic apparatus as well as a computer-readablestorage medium recording the computer program codes for implementing themethods.

With the electronic apparatus and the method according to embodiments ofthe present disclosure, the secondary systems in the particular area arecollectively clustered based on relative interferences among thesecondary systems relative to the quality of service requirements, sothat the quality of service may be guaranteed based on the quality ofservice requirements of the secondary systems, and serious co-channelinterferences can be avoided.

These and other advantages of the present disclosure will be moreapparent by illustrating in detail a preferred embodiment of the presentinvention in conjunction with accompanying drawings below.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

To further set forth the above and other advantages and features of thepresent invention, detailed description will be made in the followingtaken in conjunction with accompanying drawings in which identical orlike reference signs designate identical or like components. Theaccompanying drawings, together with the detailed description below, areincorporated into and form a part of the specification. It should benoted that the accompanying drawings only illustrate, by way of example,typical embodiments of the present invention and should not be construedas a limitation to the scope of the invention. In the accompanyingdrawings:

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing a scenario of a cognitive radiosystem;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing functional modules of an electronicapparatus according to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 3 shows an example of an undirected weighted graph built with foursecondary systems as an example;

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram showing a process of clustering thesecondary systems 1 to 4 as shown in FIG. 3 ;

FIG. 5 shows a specific example of a flowchart of the clusteringoperation;

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing functional modules of an electronicapparatus according to another embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing functional modules of an electronicapparatus according to another embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 8 shows an example of the information procedure;

FIG. 9 shows another example of the information procedure;

FIG. 10 shows a schematic diagram of a simulation scenario;

FIG. 11 shows a graph of a simulation result;

FIG. 12 shows another graph of the simulation result;

FIG. 13 shows a flowchart of a method for an electronic apparatusaccording to an embodiment of the present disclosure;

FIG. 14 shows a block diagram illustrating an example of a schematicconfiguration of a server; and

FIG. 15 is a block diagram of an exemplary block diagram illustratingthe structure of a general purpose personal computer capable ofrealizing the method and/or device and/or system according to theembodiments of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS

An exemplary embodiment of the present invention will be describedhereinafter in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. For thepurpose of conciseness and clarity, not all features of an embodimentare described in this specification. However, it should be understoodthat multiple decisions specific to the embodiment have to be made in aprocess of developing any such embodiment to realize a particular objectof a developer, for example, conforming to those constraints related toa system and a business, and these constraints may change as theembodiments differs. Furthermore, it should also be understood thatalthough the development work may be very complicated andtime-consuming, for those skilled in the art benefiting from the presentdisclosure, such development work is only a routine task.

Here, it should also be noted that in order to avoid obscuring thepresent invention due to unnecessary details, only a device structureand/or processing steps closely related to the solution according to thepresent invention are illustrated in the accompanying drawing, and otherdetails having little relationship to the present invention are omitted.

Cognitive Radio System

The cognitive radio (CR) technology is intelligent evolution of thesoftware radio technology. With the CR technology, an unlicensed usercan dynamically access to licensed spectrum according to a certain rule,thereby greatly improving an actual spectrum utilization rate. Multipletransceiving mechanisms with a cognitive function form a cognitive radiosystem (CRS), which is also referred to as a dynamic spectrum access(DAS) system. It can be regarded that the cognitive radio systemincludes a primary system and a secondary system. The primary systemrefers to a system which is licensed to use the spectrum, and thesecondary system refers to an unlicensed communication system whichdynamically accesses to the licensed spectrum according to a certainrule. In addition, a functional module called spectrum coordinator (SC)is provided to manage the secondary systems and allocate resources forthe secondary systems. Further, a public spectrum coordinator (P-SC) maybe further provided to manage multiple spectrum coordinators.

Alternatively, the secondary system may also be a system with the rightof using the spectrum, but have a lower priority level than the primarysystem in using the spectrum. For example, when an operator deploys anew base station to provide a new service, the existing base stationsand the provided services function as the primary system and have apriority in using the spectrum.

As an application example, the cognitive radio system includes abroadcast and television system and a wifi communication system.Specifically, the broadcast and television spectrum itself is allocatedto the broadcast and television system, therefore, the broadcast andtelevision system is a primary system, and may include a primary userbase station (for example, a television tower) and multiple primaryusers (for example, televisions). The wifi communication system is asecondary system, and may each include a secondary user base station(for example, a wifi access point) and a secondary user (for example, aportable computer). In the cognitive radio system, spectrum of achannel, on which no program is played or spectrum of an adjacentchannel on the digital broadcast and television spectrum can be utilizeddynamically to perform wifi communication, without interfering with thetelevision signal reception.

Specifically, a UHF frequency band is allocated to the broadcast andtelevision service, and therefore, the broadcast and television systemhas the highest priority level in the UHF frequency band, and is aprimary system. In addition, spectrum resources in the UHF frequencyband, which are not used by the broadcast and television system during acertain time period or within a certain area, can be allocated to theother communication system such as the wifi communication systemdescribed above or a mobile communication system.

In the communication manner in which the primary system and thesecondary system coexist, it is required that an application of thesecondary system does not have an adverse effect on an application ofthe primary system, alternatively, an influence of spectrum usage of thesecondary system can be controlled to be within an allowable range ofthe primary system. In the case that the interferences on the primarysystem are ensured to be within a certain range, that is, does notexceed an interference threshold of the primary system, resources of theprimary system usable by the secondary systems can be allocated tomultiple secondary systems.

It should be understood by those skilled in the art that a case that theprimary system is the broadcast and television system is describedabove, however, the present disclosure is not limited thereto. Theprimary system may be the another communication system having a legalusage right of spectrum, for example, a mobile communication system, andthe secondary system may also be the another system which needs to usethe spectrum resources to perform communication, for example, anintelligent meter reading system.

In the embodiment of the present disclosure, the secondary system is awireless communication system, which may be understood as a combinationof multiple devices having transmitting and receiving functions. Forexample, the wireless communication system may be a set of all basestations and user equipment belonging to the same mobile operator, or aset of all base stations and user equipment using the same communicationscheme for the same mobile operator. The wireless communication systemmay also be a subset of the above set, for example, including basestations and user equipment in a management area of a spectrumcoordinator. In addition, the wireless communication system may be a setof base stations and user equipment belonging to different mobileoperators but using the same communication scheme, or a subset thereofsimilar to the subset described above. In another aspect, the wirelesscommunication system may also be a set of base stations and userequipment belonging to the same service provider, or a subset thereofsimilar to the subset described above. As an example, in a case of anLTE communication system, the wireless communication system may be asubset of the LTE communication system, for example a set of subsystemson a cell level. The subsystem on the cell level may, for example,include a base station (a macro base station or a small base station)and one or more of user equipment. Of course, the wireless communicationsystem is not limited to the LTE communication system or its subset, andmay be a communication system of other types or its subset, for examplea wife communication system or its subset, etc. In addition, in someexamples, for example in a device to device communication scenario, thewireless communication system may be understood as a device clusterformed by multiple user equipment.

FIG. 1 shows a schematic diagram of a scenario of a cognitive radiosystem. For conciseness, the secondary system is indicated as atransceiver pair in FIG. 1 . However, it should be understood that FIG.1 shows only an example, and the secondary system may be any wirelesscommunication system described above.

FIG. 1 shows an example of two spectrum coordinators SC₁ and SC₂. SC₁and SC₂ share a same resource pool. An area managed by SC₁ is indicatedby a large circle on the left, and an area managed by SC₂ is indicatedby a large circle on the right. It can be seen that SC₁ and SC₂ have anoverlapping area. In addition, an example of the secondary systemsmanaged by SC₁ is indicated by a small circle in a solid line, and anexample of the secondary systems managed by SC₂ is indicated by a smallcircle in a dashed line. In the above mentioned overlapping area, theremay be both the secondary systems managed by SC₁, and the secondarysystems managed by SC₂. If spectrum coordinators independently allocatethe spectrum resources by themselves, the situation that adjacentsecondary systems use the same spectrum resources to perform datatransmission may occur, which can generate serious co-channelinterference, so that it is difficult to guarantee the communicationquality of the secondary systems.

In addition, FIG. 1 further shows that a public spectrum coordinator(P-SC) controls operations of two spectrum coordinators SC₁ and SC₂.However, it is not limiting. The spectrum coordinators SC₁ and SC₂ maybe controlled by different P-SC, or no P-SC is provided. Moreover, thenumber of the spectrum coordinators which have the overlappingmanagement areas with each other is not limited to two, and there may bemore. For ease of understanding, the scenario shown in FIG. 1 is used asan example in the description of embodiments of the present disclosurebelow, which however is not restrictive.

First Embodiment

FIG. 2 shows a block diagram of functional modules of an electronicapparatus 100 according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. Theelectronic apparatus 100 includes: a determining unit 101, configured todetermine secondary systems in a particular area, and a clustering unit102, configured to cluster, based on relative interference among thesecondary systems and quality of service requirements of the secondarysystems, the secondary systems.

The determining unit 101 and the clustering unit 102 may, for example,be implemented by one or more processing circuits. The processingcircuits may be implemented as a chip, for example.

The particular area here may be any area, such as an overlapping area ofareas managed by multiple spectrum coordinators, and a part or all ofthe management area of a single spectrum coordinator. The particulararea may be determined by the determining unit 102 according togeographical location information.

As described above, when the management areas of multiple spectrumcoordinators overlap with each other, the secondary systems in theoverlapping area may generate serious co-channel interferences due touse of the same spectrum resources to perform data transmission. In thisembodiment, the electronic apparatus 100 determines the secondarysystems in the overlapping area by using determining unit 101, andclusters these secondary systems by using the clustering unit 102,thereby effectively avoiding occurring of co-channel interferences.

For example, the determining unit 101 may determine the overlapping areaaccording to geographical location information, and then determines thesecondary systems in the overlapping area. The geographical locationinformation may be obtained by referring to a geographical locationdatabase, for example.

Alternatively, information of the respective management areas may beinterchanged among multiple spectrum coordinators, so that the spectrumcoordinators may determine the overlapping area according to theinformation, and further determine the secondary systems in theoverlapping area. In other words, the determining unit 101 may obtainthe information of the overlapping area from the spectrum coordinatorand determine the secondary systems in the overlapping area, or obtainthe information of the secondary systems in the overlapping area fromthe spectrum coordinator.

In addition, more generally, the secondary systems in the overlappingarea may further refer to a set of secondary systems of which mutualinterferences exceed a predetermined degree when the secondary systemsrespectively use the same spectrum resources to perform datatransmission, among the secondary systems managed by two spectrumcoordinators. The set of secondary systems may be determined by thedetermining unit 101, for example, based on historical information or byestimating the interferences.

After the determining unit 101 determines the secondary systems in theoverlapping area, the clustering unit 102 clusters these secondarysystems based on relative interferences among the secondary systems andquality of service requirements of the secondary systems, so as to avoidoccurring of serious co-channel interferences. In the presentdisclosure, clustering refers to grouping the secondary systems suchthat the secondary systems in the same group have relatively smallmutual interferences, for example, meeting the quality of servicerequirements of respective secondary systems, while performingcommunication by using the same spectrum resources, and differentclusters use different spectrum resources. In this way, the utilizationefficiency of the spectrum resources may be increased while meeting thequality of service requirements of respective secondary systems.

In an example, the clustering unit 102 is configured to performclustering based on a degree of relative interferences among thesecondary systems relative to the quality of service requirements of thesecondary systems. The clustering unit 102 may calculate the degree ofrelative interferences between each pair of secondary systems, andperform clustering based on the degree of relative interferences. In anexample, the clustering unit 102 may select a secondary system havingthe highest quality of service requirement (or highest priority level)as a first member of a cluster; and select a secondary system which hasthe lowest relative interferences with existing members in the clusteras a new member to be added in the cluster under the condition ofsatisfying the quality of service requirement of each member in thecluster after the adding. When adding the first member of the cluster,if there are multiple secondary systems having the same quality ofservice requirement, a secondary system which is subjected to the mostserious interferences from other secondary systems is preferentiallyselected.

Specifically, for example, the clustering unit 102 may build anundirected weighted graph formed by the secondary systems. A weight ofan edge of the undirected weighted graph is based the degree of relativeinterferences.

The undirected weighted graph may be represented as G=(V, E, W), where Vrepresents a set formed by limited secondary systems, E represents a setof edges between the secondary systems, and W represents a set ofweights of all edges. For ease of understanding, FIG. 3 shows an exampleof the undirected weighted graph built with four secondary systems as anexample. Four secondary systems serve as vertices and are indicated bynumbers 1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively. An edge connects two vertices,w_(ij) marked on the edge indicated a weight, and subscripts of w_(ij)respectively indicate numbers of the two vertices of the edge.

The weight w_(ij) takes both the relative interferences between thesecondary systems and the quality of service requirements of thesecondary systems into consideration. In other words, the weight w_(ij)is obtained based on a degree of relative interferences between asecondary system i and a secondary system j relative to the quality ofservice requirements of the secondary systems.

In an example, the quality of service may be represented by the signalto interference plus noise ratio (SINR). The quality of servicerequirement may, for example, be represented by a threshold of thesignal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR). In this example, theweight w_(ij) may be defined by the following formula (1):

$\begin{matrix}{w_{ij} = {\frac{P_{\max i}d_{ii}^{- \alpha_{ii}}}{P_{\max{}j}d_{ij}^{- \alpha_{ij}}{SINR}_{thi}} + \frac{P_{\max j}d_{jj}^{- \alpha_{jj}}}{P_{\max i}d_{ji}^{- \alpha_{ji}}{SINR}_{thj}}}} & (1)\end{matrix}$

In the formula, w_(ij) represents the weight between the i-th secondarysystem and the j-th secondary system; P_(maxi) and P_(maxj) respectivelyrepresent maximum emitting power in the i-th secondary system andmaximum emitting power in the j-th secondary system; d_(ii) and d_(jj)respectively represent a distance between a transmitter and a receiverin the i-th secondary system and a distance between a transmitter and areceiver in the j-th secondary system; a_(ii) and a_(jj) respectivelyrepresent a path loss index between the transmitter and the receiver inthe i-th secondary system and a path loss index between the transmitterand the receiver in the j-th secondary system; d_(ij) represents adistance between the transmitter of the j-th secondary system and thereceiver of the i-th secondary system; ay represents a path loss indexbetween the transmitter of the j-th secondary system and the receiver ofthe i-th secondary system; SINR_(thi) and SINR_(thj) respectivelyrepresent the signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) thresholdof the receiver in the i-th secondary system and a signal tointerference plus noise ratio (SINR) threshold of the receiver in thej-th secondary system; d_(ji) represents a distance between thetransmitter of the i-th secondary system and the receiver of the j-thsecondary system; and a_(ji) represents a path loss index between thetransmitter of the i-th secondary system and the receiver of the j-thsecondary system.

The clustering unit 102 may respectively calculate the weight of eachedge, and perform clustering based on the weight. For example, asdescribed above, the clustering unit 102 may select a secondary systemhaving the highest quality of service requirement as a first member of acluster; and select a secondary system the sum of the weights of theedges between which and existing members in the cluster is largest as anew member to be added in the cluster, under the condition of satisfyingthe quality of service requirement of each member in the cluster afterthe adding.

In adding the first cluster member, if there are multiple secondarysystems having the same quality of service requirement, a secondarysystem which has the smallest sum of the weight of all edges connectedto the secondary system is preferentially selected. For example, in acase that the weight of the above formula (1) is used, it is equivalentto selecting a secondary system with relatively the worst performance.Adding a new cluster member as described above means that a secondarysystem which has the lowest relative interferences with existing membersin the cluster will be selected. It should be understood that, themethod using the undirected weighted graph described above is only anexample of method used by the clustering unit 102, and the clusteringunit 102 may perform clustering by using other methods, which are notlimited.

If each secondary system in the cluster cannot meet the quality ofservice requirement thereof after a new cluster member is added, it isindicated that the new cluster member cannot be added into the cluster.Accordingly, the clustering unit 102 can be further configured to createa new cluster if there is a secondary system which cannot be added toexisting clusters, in the case that the number of existing clusters doesnot reach the number of available channels. The number of availablechannels represents the amount of spectrum resources which can besimultaneously utilized in the resource pool.

For ease of understanding, FIG. 4 shows a schematic diagram illustratinga process of clustering the secondary systems 1-4 shown in FIG. 3 . Whencreating a new cluster, SINR thresholds of the secondary systems 1-4 arecompared firstly. It is assumed that the SINR threshold of the secondarysystem 1 is the highest, and the secondary system 1 is added as a firstmember of cluster 1. Subsequently, weights of edges between remainingsecondary systems and the secondary system 1 are calculated. For thesecondary systems 2, 3, and 4, the weights are respectively representedby w₁₂, w₁₃ and w₁₄. Assuming w₁₃ value is the largest, the secondarysystem 3 is selected to be added into the cluster 1, and SINR value ofeach member in the cluster at this point is calculated. If SINR valuesof all members are greater than their respective SINR thresholds, it isindicated that the secondary system 3 can be added into the cluster 1.Otherwise, a new cluster is created in the case that the number of theclusters does not exceed the number of available channels.

Subsequently, in the same way, sums of the weights of edges betweenother secondary systems (that is, the secondary systems 2 and 4) and thesecondary systems 1 and 3 are respectively calculated, which arerespectively represented by w₁₂+w₂₃ and w₁₄+w₃₄ Assumingw₁₂+w₂₃>w₁₄+w₃₄, the secondary system 2 is selected to be added to thecluster 1, and the SINR value of each member in the cluster 1 iscalculated at this time. If SINR values of all members are greater thantheir respective SINR thresholds, it is indicated that the secondarysystem 2 can be added to the cluster 1. Otherwise, a new cluster iscreated in a case that the number of the clusters does not exceed thenumber of available channels.

Finally, it is attempted to add the secondary system 4 into the cluster1. If there is a secondary system in the cluster 1 of which SINR islower than its SINR threshold, the secondary system 4 cannot be added tothe cluster 1 and is removed from the cluster 1. If the number ofavailable channels is greater than 1, a new cluster is created toaccommodate the secondary system 4.

In order to fully describe operations performed of the clustering unit102, FIG. 5 shows a specific example of a flowchart of the clusteringoperation. It should be understood that, FIG. 5 is only illustrativerather than restrictive, and operations performed by the clustering unit102 are not limited thereto.

For example, in step A11, an undirected weighted graph is built. In stepA12, weights of all edges in the undirected weighted graph arecalculated, and for convenience, the weights may be sorted according toa descending order. In step A13, all secondary systems are placed intoan unclustered set. Starting from step A14, clustering is performedaccording to the method shown in FIG. 4 . In step A14, an initial valueof a number m of the cluster is set to 1. In step A15, the cluster A(m)is initialized to an empty set, and from the unclustered set, asecondary system with the highest SINR threshold is selected to be addedinto the cluster A(m). Subsequently, in step A16, the secondary systemadded into the cluster A(m) is removed from the unclustered set. In stepA17, it is determined whether the unclustered set is an empty set; ifthe unclustered set is an empty set, it is indicated that the clusteringends, the processing proceeds to step A24, and a clustering result isoutput. Otherwise, the processing proceeds to step A18, a secondarysystem, the sum of weights of edges between which and existing membersin the cluster A(m) is the largest, is selected from among theunclustered set to be added into the cluster A(m). In step A19, for eachmember in the cluster, it is determined whether its SINR requirement ismet, that is, determining whether SINR is higher than its threshold. IfSINR is higher than its threshold, it is indicated that the secondarysystem added in step A18 can be added into the cluster, and theprocessing returns to step A16 to continue the operation of adding a newcluster member. Otherwise, if there is a secondary system in the clusterof which SINR is lower than its threshold, it is indicated the secondarysystem added in step A18 cannot be added into the cluster, and theprocessing proceeds to step A20 to remove the newly added secondarysystem from the cluster. Since it is required to create a new cluster atthis time, in step A21, 1 is added to the number m of the cluster, andin step A22, it is determined whether the number of clusters is equal tothe number of available channels. If it is determined in step A22 thatthe number of clusters is equal to the number of available channels, itis indicated that the cluster is the last cluster, and in step A23, allsecondary systems in the unclustered set are added into the new cluster,the processing proceeds to step A24. Otherwise, if it is determined instep A22 that the number of clusters is not equal to the number ofavailable channels, the processing returns to step A15 and clusteringcontinues.

It should be noted that, in the determination of step A19, it may befurther determined whether the difference between the SINR value and theSINR threshold is greater than a preset value rather than 0. The presetvalue may be set based on the number of secondary systems in theoverlapping area and the amount of available resources.

It may be seen that, during the above process of clustering thesecondary systems in the overlapping area, two aspects of the relativeinterferences among the secondary systems and the quality of servicerequirements of the secondary systems are considered, so as to meet thequality of service requirements of the secondary systems while avoidingthe serious co-channel interferences among the secondary systems,improving the utilization efficiency of the spectrum.

In addition, it should be understood that, although the clustering forthe secondary systems in the overlapping area is described above, theabove clustering method may be applied to clustering of the secondarysystems managed by single spectrum coordinator, which is notrestrictive.

In an example, the above operations performed by the determining unit101 and the clustering unit 102 may be performed in response to eventindication information indicating one or more of the following events:network topology in the particular area changes, quality of service of asecondary system in the particular area decreases. However, the types ofthe event indication information are not limited thereto, and mayinclude any information indicating occurrence of a situation whereclustering may be required. Alternatively, the above operationsperformed by the determining unit 101 and the clustering unit 102 mayalso be performed periodically. Schematically, the occurrence of theseevents may be detected by the secondary systems, and may be provided tothe electronic apparatus 100 via the spectrum coordinator to which thesecondary systems belong, for example.

Second Embodiment

FIG. 6 shows a block diagram of functional modules of an electronicapparatus 200 according to another embodiment of the present disclosure.In addition to respective units shown in FIG. 2 , the electronicapparatus 200 further includes a setting unit 201, configured to set aquality of service margin threshold for each cluster, so that eachsecondary system adjusts its emitting power according to the quality ofservice margin threshold. The quality of service may, for example, berepresented by SINR.

The quality of service margin threshold limits the maximum value bywhich the quality of service of the secondary systems may exceed thequality of service requirement thereof. The reason is that, if thesecondary system has too high quality of service relative to its qualityof service requirement, it means that there is unnecessary power waste.Therefore, power waste may be restricted by setting the quality ofservice margin threshold, so as to further reduce the co-channelinterferences between the secondary systems.

In a case that the quality of service is represented by SINR, thesetting unit 201 may calculate SINR of each secondary system accordingto the following formula, and thus set the desirable SINR threshold foreach cluster.

$\begin{matrix}{{SINR}_{i} = {10{\lg\left( \frac{P_{\max i}d_{ii}^{- \alpha_{ii}}}{{\sum\limits_{j \in A}{P_{\max{}j}d_{ij}^{- \alpha_{ij}}}} + N_{0}} \right)}}} & (2)\end{matrix}$

In which, SINK, represents SINR of a receiver in the i-th secondarysystem (also referred to as SINR of the i-th secondary system); Arepresents a set of other secondary systems belonging to the samecluster with the i-th secondary system; P_(maxi) and P_(maxj)respectively represent maximum emitting power of a transmitter in thei-th secondary system and in the j-th secondary system; d_(ii)represents a distance between the transmitter and the receiver in thei-th secondary system; a_(ii) represents a path loss index between thetransmitter and the receiver in the i-th secondary system; d_(ij)represents a distance between the transmitter of the j-th secondarysystem and the receiver of the i-th secondary system; a_(ij) representsa path loss index between the transmitter of the j-th secondary systemand the receiver of the i-th secondary system; No represents noisepower. It can be seen that, a value of the SINR margin thresholdprimarily depends on the member information of each cluster such aslocation information, maximum emitting power and SINR requirement.

The same cluster may be provided with the same quality of service marginthreshold, and different clusters may be provided with different qualityof service margin thresholds. For example, a range of the value of thequality of service margin threshold is greater than or equal to zero.The value of quality of service margin threshold may be set by usingmany methods. For example, the quality of service margin threshold of acertain cluster may be set as follows: from among the quality of servicethresholds of respective members in the cluster which is greater thanzero, the minimum quality of service margin is selected as the qualityof service margin threshold of the cluster. Alternatively, in order tosave energy resources, the quality of service margin threshold of eachcluster may be directly set to 0 (in a case of SINR margin threshold,the value is 0 dB), i.e., not setting any margin.

A secondary system in the cluster may adjust the emitting power of thesecondary system according to the quality of service margin thresholdset for the cluster the secondary system belongs to. The goal of thepower adjustment is to cause the quality of service margin threshold ofthe secondary system not to exceed the quality of service marginthreshold of the cluster the secondary system belongs to. For example,if a quality of service margin of a certain secondary system is greaterthan the quality of service margin threshold of the cluster, theemitting power is decreased until the quality of service margin is equalto the quality of service margin threshold of the cluster; otherwise,the emitting power remains unchanged. After the power adjustmentcompletes, the secondary system may further report the current emittingpower to the spectrum coordinator.

The electronic apparatus 200 according to the embodiment can furtherreduce co-channel interferences among the secondary systems by settingthe quality of service margin threshold for each cluster.

Third Embodiment

FIG. 7 shows a block diagram of functional modules of an electronicapparatus 300 according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. Inan example, the particular area is an overlapping area of areas managedby multiple spectrum coordinators. In addition to respective units shownin FIG. 2 , the electronic apparatus 300 further includes a transceivingunit 301, configured to receive, from the multiple spectrumcoordinators, information about at least one of the following of thesecondary systems managed by the multiple spectrum coordinators:geographical location information, quality of service requirement andmaximum emitting power. As described above, the information may be usedfor clustering and setting a quality of service margin threshold. Itshould be understood that, although not shown in figure, the electronicapparatus 300 may further include the setting unit 201 described in thesecond embodiment.

In an example, the electronic apparatus 300 may be located in a publicspectrum coordinator controlling multiple spectrum coordinators, or maybe connected to the public spectrum coordinator.

In the example, the transceiving unit 301 is further configured toreceive from the spectrum coordinator the event indication informationindicating one or more of the following events: network topology in theoverlapping area changes, and quality of service of a secondary systemin the overlapping area decreases. As described above, the occurrence ofthese events indicates that serious co-channel interference may occur,and therefore the secondary systems in the overlapping area are requiredto be collectively clustered. The spectrum coordinator receives, fromthe secondary systems managed by the spectrum coordinator, indication ofthe occurrence of these events, and triggers to transmit the eventindication information to the electronic apparatus 300. In addition, thespectrum coordinator may further transmit the event indicationinformation to other spectrum coordinators involved by the overlappingarea.

The transceiving unit 301 may further be configured to transmit a resultof clustering to multiple spectrum coordinators. The result ofclustering, for example, includes identifier information or locationinformation of a secondary system managed by the corresponding spectrumcoordinator and information of a cluster identifier of the cluster thesecondary system belongs to. There may be a one-to-one correspondencebetween the cluster identifier and spectrum resources to be allocated tothe cluster corresponding to the cluster identifier, so that thespectrum coordinator may allocate spectrum resources to the clusteraccording to the cluster identifier. In other words, after obtaining thecluster identifier, spectrum resources to be used by the cluster areknown.

In the example, it is unnecessary to interchange sensitive user (thatis, the secondary system) information between the spectrum coordinators,and it is merely required to report the user information to a publicspectrum coordinator, thereby being beneficial to system privacy andsecurity. Correspondingly, the public spectrum coordinator merelynotifies a spectrum coordinator of the result of clustering of thesecondary systems managed by the spectrum coordinator.

Further, the transceiving unit 301 is further configured to transmit aquality of service margin threshold set for each cluster to respectivespectrum coordinators. In this way, the respective spectrum coordinatorsmay transmit to a secondary system managed by the spectrum coordinatorthe quality of service margin threshold corresponding to the secondarysystem, so that the secondary system properly adjusts its emitting poweraccording to the quality of service margin threshold.

For ease of understanding, FIG. 8 shows an example of informationprocedure for performing information interchanging among a publicspectrum coordinator, spectrum coordinators and secondary systems. Itshould be understood that, the information procedure is onlyillustrative rather than restrictive. The public spectrum coordinator(P-SC) may include any one of the electronic apparatus 100 to 300described above or implement at least a part of functions of theelectronic apparatus 100 to 300. It should be understood that, FIG. 8respectively shows an example of SC1 and SC2 acting as spectrumcoordinators managed by P-SC, which is not restrictive. The number ofspectrum coordinators managed by P-SC may be more.

Firstly, it is assumed that a certain secondary system managed by SC1detects, for example, the event of network topology changing or qualityof service decreasing, and the secondary system transmits thecorresponding event indication information to SC1. After receiving theevent indication information, SC1 triggers event and generates thecorresponding event indication information, and transmits the eventindication information to the P-SC and other spectrum coordinators inthe overlapping area. The relevant spectrum coordinators report locationinformation, quality of service requirement and maximum emitting powerof the secondary systems in the overlapping area managed by the spectrumcoordinators to the P-SC. The overlapping area may be determined by theP-SC according to global geographical location information and informedto respective spectrum coordinators, and may also be determined by thespectrum coordinators themselves by interchanging the management areainformation with each other. P-SC performs clustering according to theinformation reported by the spectrum coordinators, subsequently, informsthe result of clustering, such as the identifier or location informationof the secondary system and the identifier of the cluster the secondarysystem belongs to, to the relevant spectrum coordinators. The respectivespectrum coordinators perform spectrum allocation based on the obtainedcluster information, and inform the allocated spectrum to the secondarysystems.

In addition, optionally, P-SC may further determine a quality of servicemargin threshold of each cluster (such as SINR margin threshold), andtransmit the corresponding quality of service margin threshold of eachcluster to the spectrum coordinators. The spectrum coordinators notifiesthe respective secondary systems of the corresponding quality of servicemargin threshold based on the clustering information and the quality ofservice margin threshold information corresponding to each cluster. Inthis way, the secondary system adjusts its emitting power according tothe quality of service margin threshold, so that the quality of servicemargin does not exceed the quality of service margin threshold.

Although the case where the electronic apparatus 300 is located in thepublic spectrum coordinator or is connected to the public spectrumcoordinator is described above, the electronic apparatus 300 may belocated in the spectrum coordinator in a case that there is no publicspectrum coordinator. For example, SC1 performs the operations which areperformed by P-SC in FIG. 8 , in which case, the involved information isdirectly interchanged between SC1 and SC2. Specifically, thetransceiving unit 301 receives, from other spectrum coordinators,information about at least one of the following of the secondary systemsmanaged by other spectrum coordinators: geographical locationinformation, quality of service requirement and maximum emitting power.The determining unit 101 determines the secondary systems in theoverlapping area based on the received information and the correspondinginformation of the secondary systems managed by the present spectrumcoordinator. The clustering unit 102 performs clustering based on therelative interferences among the secondary systems and quality ofservice requirements of the secondary systems. After the clusteringcompletes, the transceiving unit 301 transmits the result of clusteringto the corresponding spectrum coordinators. In addition, similarly, thesetting unit 201 may perform the operations of setting the quality ofservice margin threshold for each cluster. Related details are describedin detail above, which are not repeated here.

In addition, in the actual network, multiple spectrum coordinators maybe further managed by different public spectrum coordinators, andrespective public spectrum coordinators perform clustering respectivelyinside the management areas, instead of collectively clustering. In thiscase, in order to avoid co-channel interferences between the secondarysystems in the overlapping area, it is required to interchange therelative information of the secondary systems located in an overlappingarea between public spectrum coordinators. The overlapping area here isan overlapping area of management regions of two public spectrumcoordinators. The overlapping area may be determined by public spectrumcoordinators according to geographical location information byinterchanging the information of management regions with each other.Public spectrum coordinators, for example, may inform their ownmanagement regions with each other by broadcasting.

Correspondingly, the transceiving unit 301 is further configured toreceive, from the multiple spectrum coordinators, emitting power of asecondary system located in the overlapping area with another publicspectrum coordinator and which is managed by the multiple spectrumcoordinators, and interchange a result of clustering and the emittingpower with another public spectrum coordinator, so as to avoidco-channel interferences.

For example, a public spectrum coordinator 1 completes clustering, andtransmits a result of clustering and related emitting power to a publicspectrum coordinator 2. The public spectrum coordinator 2 performsspectrum allocation based on the above information provided by thepublic spectrum coordinator 1 after the clustering, so as to avoidserious co-channel interferences. For example, if inter-clusterinterferences between a cluster in the public spectrum coordinator 2 anda cluster in the public spectrum coordinator 1 cannot meet quality ofservice requirements of secondary systems, the cluster in the publicspectrum coordinator 2 is required to use spectrum different from thatof the corresponding cluster in the public spectrum coordinator 1.Subsequently, the public spectrum coordinator 2 transmits thisinformation to the corresponding spectrum coordinators, and may notifythe public spectrum coordinator 1 of the following information:information of the result of clustering of users located in theoverlapping area within the management region (such as, the identifierinformation or location information of the secondary system, theidentifier of the cluster the secondary system belongs to), emittingpower and so on.

For ease of understanding, FIG. 9 shows an example of informationprocedure of cooperation between public spectrum coordinators. It shouldbe understood that, the information procedure is only illustrativerather than restrictive. The public spectrum coordinator (P-SC) mayinclude any one of the electronic apparatus 100 to 300 described aboveor implement at least a part of functions of the electronic apparatus100 to 300. It should be understood that, FIG. 9 respectively shows SC1and SC2 as an example of spectrum coordinators managed by P-SC 1 andP-SC 2. Actually, the number of spectrum coordinators managed by P-SC 1and P-SC 2 may be more. Moreover, the number of public spectrumcoordinators which cooperate with each other is not limited to two asshown in FIG. 9 either.

As shown in FIG. 9 , SC1 transmits the following information to itscorresponding public spectrum coordinator P-SC1: geographical locationinformation, quality of service requirement (such as SINR threshold) andmaximum emitting power of the secondary systems managed by SC1. P-SC 1performs clustering on the secondary systems located in the overlappingarea of areas managed by multiple spectrum coordinators based on thisinformation. After the clustering completes, P-SC1 transmits the relatedclustering information and emitting power of the secondary systemslocated in the overlapping area of areas managed by P-SC 1 and P-SC 2 toP-SC 2. When P-SC 2 performs clustering based on the receivedgeographical location information, quality of service requirement (suchas SINR threshold) and maximum emitting power of the secondary systemsmanaged by P-SC 2, the above information provided by P-SC 1 is requiredto be taken into consideration, so as to avoid occurrence of seriousco-channel interferences between the secondary systems located in theoverlapping area of P-SC 1 and P-SC 2. Finally, P-SC 2 transmits theresult of clustering to the secondary system managed by P-SC 2, andtransmits the related clustering information and emitting power of thesecondary system located in the overlapping area to P-SC 1. It should benoted that, the emitting power of the secondary system which isinterchanged between P-SC 1 and P-SC 2 may be set as maximum emittingpower by default, or may be the emitting power after power adjustment onthe basis of SINR margin threshold. In the latter case, as describedabove, the secondary system is required to report the information of theadjusted emitting power to the spectrum coordinator to which thesecondary system belongs, and the spectrum coordinator reports theinformation to the corresponding public spectrum coordinator.

In another example, the electronic apparatus 300 may be located in aspectrum coordinator, or may be connected to the spectrum coordinator.

In the example, the particular area is at least a part of an areamanaged by a spectrum coordinator. The transceiving unit 301 may beconfigured to receive information about at least one of the following ofthe secondary systems managed by the one spectrum coordinator:geographical location information, quality of service requirement andmaximum emitting power. Correspondingly, the clustering technology andthe power adjustment technology described in the first embodiment andthe second embodiment are still applicable, which are not repeated here.

For example, the electronic apparatus 300 may be further configured toallocate spectrum resources in unit of cluster based on a result of theclustering. As described above, in a case that there is one-to-onecorrespondence between the cluster identifier and spectrum resources,spectrum resources may be allocated in accordance with numbers of theclusters.

In addition, the transceiving unit 301 may be further configured totransmit a quality of service margin threshold to the secondary systems,so that each secondary system adjusts its emitting power according tothe quality of service margin threshold.

Improvement of system performance produced by the clustering technologyand power adjustment technology of the present disclosure is shown belowthrough a simulation example. FIG. 10 shows a schematic diagram of asimulating scenario. Multiple secondary systems share a same spectrumpool, and secondary systems in an overlapping area are controlled bydifferent spectrum coordinators. In a given time interval, only one pairof users communicate in each secondary system. A transmitter is locatedat a center of the secondary system, and a receiver is located at anedge of the secondary system. Different transmitters are distributed inan area of 100 meters multiplied by 100 meters randomly. A serviceradius of each secondary system is 20 meters, and only large-scale pathloss is considered.

Simulation parameters are set as follows. The number of secondarysystems Np is 12, the number of available channels N_(c) is 3, noisefigure (NF) at receivers is 5 dB, SINR thresholds (SINR_(th)) of 12secondary systems are 9 dB to 20 dB at an interval of 1 dB, maximumemitting power of the first 6 secondary systems (P_(max1)) is 3 dBm,maximum emitting power of the last 6 secondary systems (P_(max2)) is 0dBm, a path loss index between the transmitter and receiver in eachsecondary system is 2.5, a path loss index between a transmitter of thej-th secondary system and a receiver of the i-th secondary system is3.5, SINR margin threshold of each cluster (ΔC_(i)) is all 0 dB.

In the simulation, the locations of the 12 secondary systems arechanged, and 10000 times of cyclic simulations are performed. Theperformance for the following four methods is compared: 1) a traditionalsequential coloring method; 2) the method described in the firstembodiment, however, when the clustering is performed based on anundirected weighted graph, a SINR threshold is not considered forcalculating a weight of an edge, that is, the weight is calculated as

${w_{ij} = {\frac{P_{\max i}d_{ii}^{- \alpha_{ii}}}{P_{\max{}j}d_{ij}^{- \alpha_{ij}}} + \frac{P_{\max j}d_{jj}^{- \alpha_{jj}}}{P_{\max i}d_{ji}^{- \alpha_{ji}}}}},$

and the definition of each symbol is identical to those of the formula(1); 3) the method described in first embodiment; and 4) the methoddescribed in the second embodiment, that is, power adjustment is furtherperformed.

The probabilities of meeting quality of service requirements of allsecondary systems obtained by using the above four methods arerespectively 82%, 84%, 95% and 96%. It can be seen that, the technologyof the present disclosure can better guarantee the quality of service ofthe secondary systems, increase the number of secondary systems whichmeet the quality of service requirements as well as the probability ofmeeting the quality of service requirements of all users.

FIG. 11 shows a schematic diagram of cumulative distribution function(CDF) of SINR of the secondary system 1 as an example. The probabilitiesof failing to meet the quality of service requirement of the secondarysystem when using the methods 1) and 2) are both 6%, and theprobabilities of failing to meet the quality of service requirement ofthe secondary system when using the methods 3) and 4) are 0%. Therefore,it can be seen that, the weight calculation method in the presentdisclosure can better meet different SINR requirements of differentsecondary systems.

FIG. 12 shows a cumulative distribution diagram of sum of interferencesin the overlapping area. The sum of interferences represents a summationof interferences among the secondary systems within a cluster for allclusters. The mathematical formula is represented as follows:

$\begin{matrix}{I_{sum} = {\sum\limits_{m = 1}^{Nc}{\sum\limits_{i,{j \in C_{m}}}{P_{j}d_{ij}^{- \alpha_{ii}}}}}} & (3)\end{matrix}$

C_(m) represents the m-th cluster; N_(c) represents the sum of clusters(equal to the number of available channels); P_(j) represents emittingpower of a transmitter in the j-th secondary system; d_(ij) represents adistance between the transmitter in the j-th secondary system and areceiver in the i-th secondary system; a_(jj) represents a path lossindex between the transmitter in the j-th secondary system and thereceiver in the i-th secondary system. As can be known from FIG. 12 ,the weight calculation method in the present disclosure may reduce sumof interferences of the secondary systems, and may further reduce sum ofinterferences of the secondary systems after performing poweradjustment.

Fourth Embodiment

In the process of describing the electronic apparatus in the embodimentsdescribed above, obviously, some processing and methods are alsodisclosed. Hereinafter, an overview of the methods is given withoutrepeating some details disclosed above. However, it should be notedthat, although the methods are disclosed in a process of describing theelectronic apparatus, the methods do not certainly employ or are notcertainly executed by the aforementioned components. For example, theembodiments of the electronic apparatus may be partially or completelyimplemented with hardware and/or firmware, the method described belowmay be executed by a computer-executable program completely, althoughthe hardware and/or firmware of the apparatus can also be used in themethods.

FIG. 13 shows a flowchart of a method for an electronic apparatusaccording to an embodiment of the present disclosure. The methodincludes: determining secondary systems in a particular area (S11); andclustering, based on the relative interferences among the secondarysystems and quality of service requirements of the secondary systems,the secondary systems (S12).

In addition, in an example, a particular area is an overlapping area ofareas managed by multiple spectrum coordinators. As shown by a dashedline block in the figure, the above method may further include:receiving information about at least one of the following of thesecondary systems managed by the spectrum coordinator: geographicallocation information, quality of service requirement and maximumemitting power (S10); and transmitting a result of clustering to thespectrum coordinator (S13).

The quality of service may be represented by signal to interference plusnoise ratio. The result of clustering may include identifier informationof the secondary system managed by the corresponding spectrumcoordinator and information of cluster identifier of the cluster towhich the secondary system belongs.

Before receiving the above information in step S10, the event indicationinformation indicating one or more of the following events may befurther received: network topology in the overlapping area changes andquality of service of a secondary system in the overlapping areadecreases. The processing in step S11 and step S12 is performed inresponse to the event indication information.

In an example, a particular area may be determined according togeographical location information in step S11. In step S12, theclustering can be performed based on a degree of relative interferencesamong the secondary systems relative to the quality of servicerequirements of the secondary systems. Specifically, for example, anundirected weighted graph formed by the secondary systems may be built,and a weight of an edge of the undirected weighted graph is based on theabove degree of relative interferences.

For example, the clustering may be performed as follows: selecting asecondary system with the highest quality of service requirement as afirst member of a cluster; selecting a secondary system which has thelowest relative interferences with existing members in the cluster as anew member to be added in the cluster, under the condition of satisfyingthe quality of service requirement of each member in the cluster afterthe adding. In a case that the number of the existing clusters does notreach the number of available channels, if there is a secondary systemwhich cannot be added into existing cluster, a new cluster is created.

In addition, as shown by a dashed line block in the figure, the abovemethod may further include step S14: setting a quality of service marginthreshold for each cluster, so that each secondary system adjusts itsemitting power according to the quality of service margin threshold. Instep S15, the quality of service margin threshold set for each clustermay be transmitted to respective spectrum coordinators.

Although not shown in the figure, in a case that multiple spectrumcoordinators are controlled by multiple public spectrum coordinators,the above method further include: receiving, from the multiple spectrumcoordinators, emitting power of a secondary system located in theoverlapping area with another public spectrum coordinator and which ismanaged by the multiple spectrum coordinators, and interchanging aresult of clustering and the emitting power with another public spectrumcoordinators, so as to avoid co-channel interferences.

In addition, in the above method, the particular area may also be atleast a part of an area managed by a spectrum coordinator. In step S10,the information about at least one of the following of the secondarysystems managed by the spectrum coordinator may be further received:geographical location information, quality of service requirement andmaximum emitting power. The spectrum resources are allocated in unit ofcluster based on a result of clustering after the clustering, forexample, spectrum resources are allocated in accordance with numbers ofthe clusters. In step S15, a quality of service margin threshold may betransmitted to the secondary systems, so that each secondary systemadjusts its emitting power according to the quality of service marginthreshold.

Note that each of the above methods may be used in combination orseparately and the details thereof have been described in detail in thefirst to third embodiments, which will be not repeated herein.

In conclusion, with the electronic apparatus and the method according tothe present disclosure, one or more of the following effects can beachieved: significantly increasing the number of secondary systems whichmeet the quality of service requirements in the overlapping area;guaranteeing different qualities of service based on different qualityof service requirements of different secondary systems; effectivelyreducing co-channel interferences between the secondary systems in theoverlapping area; avoiding to interchange sensitive information betweenthe spectrum coordinators; improving privacy, confidentiality andsecurity of the system; reducing signaling interaction overheads.

Application Example

The technology according to the present disclosure may be applied tovarious types of products. For example, the electronic apparatus 100 to300 may be implemented as any type of servers, such as a tower server, arack server or a blade server. The electronic apparatus 100 to 300 maybe control modules installed in the server (such as an integratedcircuit module including a single wafer, and a card or blade insertedinto a slot of the blade server).

For example, a base station in the above mentioned secondary system maybe realized as any type of evolved Node B (eNB) such as a macro eNB anda small eNB. The small eNB such as a pico eNB, micro eNB and a home(femto-cell) eNB may have a smaller coverage range than a macro cell.Alternatively, the base station may also be implemented as any othertype of base stations, such as a NodeB and a base transceiver station(BTS). The base station may include a body (also referred to as a basestation device) configured to control wireless communications; and oneor more remote radio heads (RRHs) arranged in a different position fromthe body. In addition, various types of user equipments, which will bedescribed below, may each operate as the base station by temporarily orsemi-persistently executing a base station function.

For example, user equipment in the secondary systems may be implementedas a mobile terminal (such as a smart phone, a tablet personal computer(PC), a notebook PC, a portable game terminal and a portable/donglemobile router and a digital camera) or an in-vehicle terminal such as acar navigation apparatus. The UE may be further implemented as aterminal performing machine to machine (M2M) communication (that is alsoreferred to as a machine type communication (MTC) terminal). Inaddition, the user equipment may be a wireless communication moduleinstalled on each of the above terminals (such as an integrated circuitmodule including a single wafer).

Application Examples Regarding the Electronic Apparatus

FIG. 14 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a schematicconfiguration of a server 700 to which the technology of the presentdisclosure may be applied. The server 700 includes a processor 701, amemory 702, a storage 703, a network interface 704, and a bus 706.

The processor 701 may be, for example, a central processing unit (CPU)or a digital signal processor (DSP), and controls functions of theserver 700. The memory 702 includes random access memory (RAM) and readonly memory (ROM), and stores a program that is executed by theprocessor 701 and data. The storage 703 may include a storage mediumsuch as a semiconductor memory and a hard disk.

The network interface 704 is a wired communication interface forconnecting the server 700 to a wired communication network 705. Thewired communication network 705 may be a core network such as an EvolvedPacket Core (EPC), or a packet data network (PDN) such as the Internet.

The bus 706 connects the processor 701, the memory 702, the storage 703,and the network interface 704 to each other. The bus 706 may include twoor more buses (such as a high speed bus and a low speed bus) each ofwhich has different speed.

In the server 700 shown in FIG. 14 , the determining unit 101, theclustering unit 102 and the setting unit 201 described with reference toFIG. 2 , FIG. 6 and FIG. 7 may be implemented by the processor 701. Forexample, the processor 701 may perform the clustering operation and thequality of service margin threshold setting operation according to thepresent disclosure by performing operations of the determining unit 101,the clustering unit 102 and the setting unit 201.

The basic principle of the present disclosure has been described abovein conjunction with particular embodiments. However, as can beappreciated by those ordinarily skilled in the art, all or any of thesteps or components of the method and apparatus according to thedisclosure can be implemented with hardware, firmware, software or acombination thereof in any computing device (including a processor, astorage medium, etc.) or a network of computing devices by thoseordinarily skilled in the art in light of the disclosure of thedisclosure and making use of their general circuit designing knowledgeor general programming skills.

Moreover, the present disclosure further discloses a program product inwhich machine-readable instruction codes are stored. The aforementionedmethods according to the embodiments can be implemented when theinstruction codes are read and executed by a machine.

Accordingly, a memory medium for carrying the program product in whichmachine-readable instruction codes are stored is also covered in thepresent disclosure. The memory medium includes but is not limited tosoft disc, optical disc, magnetic optical disc, memory card, memorystick and the like.

In the case where the present disclosure is realized with software orfirmware, a program constituting the software is installed in a computerwith a dedicated hardware structure (e.g. the general computer 1500shown in FIG. 15 ) from a storage medium or network, wherein thecomputer is capable of implementing various functions when installedwith various programs.

In FIG. 15 , a central processing unit (CPU) 1501 executes variousprocessing according to a program stored in a read-only memory (ROM)1502 or a program loaded to a random access memory (RAM) 1503 from amemory section 1508. The data needed for the various processing of theCPU 1501 may be stored in the RAM 1503 as needed. The CPU 1501, the ROM1502 and the RAM 1503 are linked with each other via a bus 1504. Aninput/output interface 1505 is also linked to the bus 1504.

The following components are linked to the input/output interface 1505:an input section 1506 (including keyboard, mouse and the like), anoutput section 1507 (including displays such as a cathode ray tube(CRT), a liquid crystal display (LCD), a loudspeaker and the like), amemory section 1508 (including hard disc and the like), and acommunication section 1509 (including a network interface card such as aLAN card, modem and the like). The communication section 1509 performscommunication processing via a network such as the Internet. A driver1510 may also be linked to the input/output interface 1505, if needed.If needed, a removable medium 1511, for example, a magnetic disc, anoptical disc, a magnetic optical disc, a semiconductor memory and thelike, may be installed in the driver 1510, so that the computer programread therefrom is installed in the memory section 1508 as appropriate.

In the case where the foregoing series of processing is achieved throughsoftware, programs forming the software are installed from a networksuch as the Internet or a memory medium such as the removable medium1511.

It should be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the memorymedium is not limited to the removable medium 1511 shown in FIG. 15 ,which has program stored therein and is distributed separately from theapparatus so as to provide the programs to users. The removable medium1511 may be, for example, a magnetic disc (including floppy disc(registered trademark)), a compact disc (including compact discread-only memory (CD-ROM) and digital versatile disc (DVD), a magnetooptical disc (including mini disc (MD)(registered trademark)), and asemiconductor memory. Alternatively, the memory medium may be the harddiscs included in ROM 1502 and the memory section 1508 in which programsare stored, and can be distributed to users along with the device inwhich they are incorporated.

To be further noted, in the apparatus, method and system according tothe present disclosure, the respective components or steps can bedecomposed and/or recombined. These decompositions and/or recombinationsshall be regarded as equivalent solutions of the invention. Moreover,the above series of processing steps can naturally be performedtemporally in the sequence as described above but will not be limitedthereto, and some of the steps can be performed in parallel orindependently from each other.

Finally, to be further noted, the term “include”, “comprise” or anyvariant thereof is intended to encompass nonexclusive inclusion so thata process, method, article or device including a series of elementsincludes not only those elements but also other elements which have beennot listed definitely or an element(s) inherent to the process, method,article or device. Moreover, the expression “comprising a(n) . . . ” inwhich an element is defined will not preclude presence of an additionalidentical element(s) in a process, method, article or device comprisingthe defined element(s)” unless further defined.

Although the embodiments of the present disclosure have been describedabove in detail in connection with the drawings, it shall be appreciatedthat the embodiments as described above are merely illustrative ratherthan limitative of the present disclosure. Those skilled in the art canmake various modifications and variations to the above embodimentswithout departing from the spirit and scope of the present disclosure.Therefore, the scope of the present disclosure is defined merely by theappended claims and their equivalents.

1. An electronic apparatus, comprising: processing circuitry configuredto receive information of a plurality of secondary systems managed byone or more spectrum coordinators; determine, based on the information,a graph which represents interference relationships among the pluralityof secondary systems; perform, in accordance with the graph, groupingamong the plurality of secondary systems as one or more groups, each ofthe one or more groups including one or more of the plurality ofsecondary systems which satisfies a quality of service requirement forthe respective group; and allocate, in accordance with the grouping, aspectrum resource to each of the one or more secondary systems of theplurality of secondary systems, wherein, the information includes atleast one of geographical location information of each of the pluralityof secondary systems or maximum emitting power information of each ofthe plurality of secondary systems.
 2. The electronic apparatusaccording to claim 1, wherein, the processing circuitry is furtherconfigured to allocate the spectrum resource to each of the one or moresecondary systems further in accordance with the maximum emitting powerinformation of each of the one or more secondary systems.
 3. Theelectronic apparatus according to claim 1, wherein, the processingcircuitry is further configured to create one or more vertexes, whereineach of the one or more vertexes corresponds to the one or moresecondary systems of the plurality of secondary systems; and create oneor more edges between the vertexes, wherein the one or more edges arecreated according to relative interferences among the plurality ofsecondary systems.
 4. The electronic apparatus according to claim 1,wherein, the processing circuitry is further configured to allocate thespectrum resource to the secondary systems based on the result ofgrouping, such that the spectrum resource allocated to one group of thesecondary systems do not interfere with another spectrum resourceallocated to another group of the secondary systems.
 5. The electronicapparatus according to claim 1, wherein, the processing circuitry isfurther configured to inform the allocation of the spectrum resource tothe one or more spectrum coordinators.
 6. The electronic apparatusaccording to claim 1, wherein, the processing circuitry is furtherconfigured to allocate the spectrum resource to the secondary systemsfurther in accordance with the maximum emitting power information ofeach of the plurality of secondary systems.
 7. The electronic apparatusaccording to claim 1, wherein, the processing circuitry is furtherconfigured to receive event indication from at least one of the one ormore spectrum coordinators as a trigger to determine the graph, theevent indication being generated based on information of networktopology changing or quality of service decreasing detected at least oneof the plurality of secondary systems.
 8. A method for managing anelectronic apparatus, comprising: receiving information of a pluralityof secondary systems managed by one or more spectrum coordinators;determining, based on the information, a graph which representsinterference relationships among the plurality of secondary systems;performing, in accordance with the graph, grouping among the pluralityof secondary systems as one or more groups, each of the one or moregroups including one or more of the plurality of secondary systems whichsatisfies a quality of service requirement for the respective group; andallocating, in accordance with the grouping, a spectrum resource to eachof the one or more secondary systems of the plurality of secondarysystems, wherein, the information includes at least one of geographicallocation information of each of the plurality of secondary systems ormaximum emitting power information of each of the plurality of secondarysystems.
 9. The method according to claim 8, further comprising:allocating the spectrum resource to each of the one or more secondarysystems further in accordance with the maximum emitting powerinformation of each of the one or more secondary systems.
 10. The methodaccording to claim 8, wherein, further comprising: creating one or morevertexes, wherein each of the one or more vertexes corresponds to theone or more secondary systems of the plurality of secondary systems; andcreating one or more edges between the vertexes, wherein the one or moreedges are created according to relative interferences among theplurality of secondary systems.
 11. The method according to claim 8,wherein, further comprising: allocating the spectrum resource to thesecondary systems based on the result of grouping, such that thespectrum resource allocated to one group of the secondary systems do notinterfere with another spectrum resource allocated to another group ofthe secondary systems.
 12. The method according to claim 8, wherein,further comprising: informing the allocation of the spectrum resource tothe one or more spectrum coordinators.
 13. The method according to claim8, wherein, further comprising: allocating the spectrum resource to thesecondary systems further in accordance with the maximum emitting powerinformation of each of the plurality of secondary systems.
 14. Themethod according to claim 8, wherein, further comprising: receivingevent indication from at least one of the one or more spectrumcoordinators as a trigger to determine the graph, the event indicationbeing generated based on information of network topology changing orquality of service decreasing detected at least one of the plurality ofsecondary systems.
 15. The electronic apparatus according to claim 1,wherein, the processing circuitry is further configured to set a qualityof service margin threshold for each group, so that each of the one ormore secondary systems belonging to the group adjusts its emitting poweraccording to the quality of service margin threshold.
 16. The electronicapparatus according to claim 1, wherein, the processing circuitry isfurther configured to allocate spectrum resources in accordance withnumbers of the groups.
 17. The electronic apparatus according to claim3, wherein, the processing circuitry is further configured to generatean undirected weighted graph as the graph based on the one or morecreated edges.
 18. An electronic device in a secondary system,comprising: processing circuitry configured to transmit information ofthe secondary system to a spectrum coordinator managing the secondarysystem; and receive, allocated from an electronic apparatus managing thesecondary system and managed by the spectrum coordinator, a spectrumresource for use, wherein, the spectrum resource is allocated inaccordance with a grouping performed by the electronic apparatus,wherein, the grouping is performed, in accordance with a graphdetermined by the electronic apparatus based on the information, among aplurality of secondary systems including the secondary system as one ormore groups, each of the one or more groups including one or more of theplurality of secondary systems which satisfies a quality of servicerequirement for the respective group, wherein, the graph representsinterference relationships among the plurality of secondary systems,wherein, the information includes at least one of geographical locationinformation of each of the plurality of secondary systems or maximumemitting power information of each of the plurality of secondarysystems.